Industry meddled in UNICEF

The authors of a new report have recommended that UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) should restore its 2001 policy of not working with the tobacco industry or its agents, in line with the policies followed by sister UN agencies, according to a story by Elizabeth Fernandez published on the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) website.
UNICEF, which is a 70-year-old organization active in about 190 countries, focuses on the rights of children worldwide.
The UCSF report was published in the April 30 issue of Pediatrics, the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
According to previously-secret documents uncovered by UCSF researchers, the tobacco industry manipulated the UNICEF from 2003 until at least 2016, during which time the agency’s focus on children’s rights to a tobacco-free life was reduced.
“UNICEF allowed itself to be manipulated by the tobacco industry,” author Stella A. Bialous, DrPH, RN, an associate professor in the UCSF School of Nursing and long-time tobacco control expert whose research focuses on the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, was quoted as saying.
“After UNICEF loosened its guidelines on funding from the tobacco industry in 2003, it opened the door for the tobacco industry to form partnerships that appeared to undermine its involvement in tobacco control.
“The tobacco industry is expert at bamboozling people and UNICEF was vulnerable to it,” added Bialous, who is also with the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
The researchers used documents from the Truth Tobacco Documents library, an online collection housed at UCSF of previously-secret tobacco-industry documents produced mainly through litigation against tobacco companies.
Additional information was garnered online, from UNICEF’s and tobacco industry websites.
Fernandez’s story is at: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/04/410301/unicef-muted-tobacco-control-children.